The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-11-30
Seletteo Storm.
The Good Old Times.

ern times were awfully bad and that
the good old times of hundred years
ago were just right. He would decry
invention and improvement and say
that the world would be better without
them. He took a newspaper on pur-
pose to count the murders recorded in
it and tell how bad the world had
grown. He would stand for hours on
a corner in the village and retail his de-
auctions on the present and his regrets
for the past.
One day he had whipped the min
ister in argument, and, as he had had
his dinner and the minister had gone
away mad and the women were at work
in the kitchen, he tipped back in his
chair, drew red silk handkerchief over
his head to keep the flies off and went
to sleep. He had not slept over five
minutes before his soh John came in
and said:
"Come, father, we must get at that
piece of wheat and cut it''
Blewitt got up and yawned and fol-
lowed his son to the barn-yard, where
his two sons sat on a log filing a couple
of sickles.
" What in the nation are you doing
with those old sickles?" said Blewitt.
One of the boys looked astonished
and said: "Doin'? Why, we are getting
ready to cut the wheat"
Blewitt stared a moment and then
said: Why in thunder don't you hitch
on to that reaper and stop foolin' with
them sickles?"
The boys looked at each other in sur
prise, but said nothing. Blewitt ran to
tho chad ht,t ihora t1o,
He came back. The boys had got over
the fence and were on their knees reap
ing the wheat and carrying it in gavels.
-mean by this foolishness? Where is that
reaper?"
Charley, the second boy, looked at
his father ptyingly, and then tapped
his forehead and looked over to John,
who nodded and looked sad.
Why, darn it," said Blewitt, :" you
can never run them bundles through a
thrashin' machine"
Thrashin' -machine,n said Charley:
"why, you know as well as | do that
shall have to fail this wheat out morn
ings and nights while going to school
this winter. What ails you, father"
Blewitt, as we said, got mad easily,
and now he just hoped up and down,
and said
g Flail it out. 1t must be thrashed
ready to ship on the cars next month"
Cars, cars" said John, 81 don't
know what ails you, father, or what you
mean. | know l shall have to team
this wheat down to Albany and sell it
for what it will bring. Here you come
out talkin' about reapers and cars and
thrashin' machines, and darned if l
don't believe you are crazy, so now"
Blewtt pinched himself to see if he
was awake and strobe angrily to the
house. AS he approached it he heard
rumbling and roaring like wind, and
he looked into the kitchen and there
was his wife spinning. Who-o-o went
the big wheel, and Blewitt sank into
chair and yelled:
Now, Maria, what under the canopy
are you doin?"
g Doin'?" said his wife, g why, spin
min, of course. l must get out forty
yards of full-cloth for you and the boys,
and twenty yards of pressed flannel for
me and the gals"
saw them encased in full-cloth of coarse
lCAlulCs anu luC SCdI VI lis lTOWSGTS he
felt reached clear up to his shoulder
blades, and the legs were as wide as
two-bushel sacks.
" Well, III be darned," was all he
said.
Dreamily he sauntered out again to
the wbeat-field and John hailed him:
Father, if you amt goin' to help
cut the wheat suppose you yoke the
oxen and 90 up to the woods and draw
a draft or two of logs for wood?"
Blewitt was composed, but he said:
had intended to burn coal in the
sitting-room and parlor, and not cut
much wood.".
g Coal, coal!' said John, angrilv:
g now see here, father; l don't want
any more of this foolish talk. ! am
goin' to Git DOCTOR"
Bewitt began to think he needed
one himself. Here Mis- boys had never
heard of reaper or threshing-ma-
chine or cars. He felt of his full-cloth
pants and groaned. On the lounge at
the house he laid himself down and
tried to calmly think things over. When
the doctor came he called for a pail and
barred Blewitt's arm. He took out his
lance, and then Blewitt groaned again.
g must take gallon of blood, )" said
the doctor, and then he will calm
down and be all right"
Don't you know bleedin' was played
out fifty years ago?" said Blewitt.
" How he wanders," said the doctor,
and plunged in his lancet Blewitt
tainted. When he came to himself he
heard one of the girls talking about an
artist down in the village who took
profile pictures with spindle as natural
as life.
What do you want of such blamed
pictures as that?" said Blewtt from the
lounge. why don't you go down to
Tak'ems at Albany and git photo
graphs?"
Photographs" said the whole fam
lily; what funny names he gets off in
his crazy fancy"
Blewltt was too weak to argue, and
he seemed to be somehow out of SYM
pathy or knowledge with all mankind,
so he just lay still and watched the
girls get supper. He noticed that the
fireboard was down and a fire was built
in the fireplace. A kettle was on the
hearth and was covered with live Goals.
Soon he saw the girls take out of the
kettle some nice biscuits and he weakly
said; "Why don't you use the cook